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Tropical Delight Noodle House: Calgary, Alberta

I’m really excited to write this post and to share this little discovery of mine. 🙂

I eat a lot of Asian food in my home and outside. A lot of Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and a dash of Cambodian. There is one cuisine that I’ve always wanted to try in Calgary, but never had anyone who could fill the need and that’s Malaysian.

The other day Ben and I were running an errand and I noticed a sign that said “Laksa, Tom Yum Noodles“, and long and behold we found Tropical Delight Noodle House.

I was super excited about this place as I haven’t had any good laksa noodles in Calgary. I generally had them at Chinese restaurants that offer them on the menu, but they were never really good- not spicy, not creamy, not coconutty enough.

The Tools- A friend back in University from Singapore once joked that Westerners eat with forks and knives, while Singaporeans and Malays eat with forks and spoons. Seeing this reminded me of that funny conversation.

But until we tried Tropical Delight’s Laksa, we were in love. The Laksa Noodles are $7.50 a bowl, it was creamy, spicy, and had a strong coconut flavour. There were quite a few toppings such as full size shrimps, deep fried tofu puffs, fish balls, steamed+fried Asian ham, half an egg, and some crab sticks ( I personally could do without the crab sticks since I’m just not a fan of them). It was garnished with fried shallots and chopped scallions. It tasted amazing, the heat wasn’t too bad either. If you like yellow curry, then you’ll like laksa noodles since the flavour is quite similar to that except that the laksa has a stronger coconut taste to the soup. What accompanied this was their house made Sambal.

Their Sambal is house-made and tasted pretty darn good. I can honestly say that I could eat loads of this spicy chilli sauce if I could. You use it to dip the toppings from your laksa, but I was told you can also mix it into your laksa if you want the extra heat. It’s not as spicy as most Chinese chilli sauces, it had much more mild taste. It had a hint of sweetness and tasted – fresh, just like anything that’s house-made.

Ben and I both really liked our Laksa Noodles that we went back the next day for lunch.

This time I was recommended to try their Wonton Lolo Kolo Mee for $7.95. They also offer general western friendly Chinese food here too, so I had to ask what was the difference between the Wonton Lolo Kolo Mee and their Wor Wonton, and they said that this is a dried version of noodles where the soup is on the side. It peaked my interest as I love cooked soupless noodles so we ordered a bowl of this to share. It came with pork wontons, ground pork, egg noodles, garnished with fried shallots and scallions.

It had a chicken broth on the side and the friendly gentleman that was serving us brought over these a beautiful bowl of green pickled peppers. I didn’t get a photo of it since we were eager to start digging in but this bowl of noodles was good, it tasted really great with the pickled green peppers. The green peppers were pickled with white vinegar and some sugar and it definitely gave it that extra hit of spice that just made it even better.

The next thing we shared was the Nasi Lemak with Beef Rendang for $8.99. It’s actually a combo that came with coconut rice, anchovies, egg, samba nanas, and a choice of meat. I chose Beef Rendang which is beef stewed with coconut milk and spices such as galangal, lemon grass, turmeric, garlic and shallots. This tasted amazing. It reminds me of Chinese beef brisket but better. It’s tender and the flavour profiles are just so much more than what Chinese beef brisket is. You can taste the lemon grass and garlic and it’s savoury with a hint of sweetness. It’s accompanied with Sambal Nanas which is version of the Sambal I had with the Laksa, only it’s made with pineapples. The lady that was there told me that there are different Sambals for different dishes, so with rice, there is Sambal Nanas and with noodles there was the other Sambal that I had the previous day. All in all, I love their Sambals so much I can probably just eat that alone with rice.

The folks there are really friendly, they smile all the time. What I also love is the sense of it being just a small neighbourhood lunch spot. They are not fancy or a hip type of place, but it’s a place that you feel warm and comfortable in. You’re here for the food and friendly service that’s it. It is located in an industrial part of the NE, so it is a little out of the way but it’s definitely worth a trip to try out.

I’ll be back here for sure to try other item menus like their Roti Canai and for sure this will be on my rotation of restaurants.

Anna’s Notes

Debit and Cash Only

Open Monday – Saturday 8:00 am to 5:00 pm

Free parking around the strip mall in front of the restaurant.

Get the Laksa Noodles

Take-out available, but their take-out menu won’t have all the cool items such as Roti Canai and the Wonton Lolo Mee.

I discovered this place earlier in the week and was happy about it since there hasn’t been any malaysian restaurants in Calgary in years. I tried their nasi lemak and it was pretty authentic. Next, I want to try their noodle soups. I just want to say the dried wonton noodles is called Kolo mee, not Lolo mee. It is a dish typically found served in east Malaysia in Sarawak. The dried wonton mee served on peninsular malaysia usually has char siew and not ground pork as a garnish.

These hidden gems in the middle of nowhere are usually where you can find the most delicious food and authentic dining experience. Each dish you described makes my mouth drool. Very reasonable prices too!